The great big "ask an airline pilot" thread!

smurfjed · 15-03-2015 05:23PM

Last day of ground school tomorrow so I get to put out fires and slide out of a burning aircraft and then hopefully get saved by the flight attendants as they drag me into a raft. Our training facilities are huge and the company has just opened a new 7 floor building that just deals with service training. In both places they have full size aircraft mockups, the evacuation trainer replicates either a B747 or B777 and has full motion, smoke and noise generators etc.

This got me thinking, where do EI and FR do this sort of training?

billie1b · 15-03-2015 05:31PM

Not sure about EI, FR have training bases in both EMA and HHN, HHN being the main one these days.

TheBoss11 · 15-03-2015 05:50PM

Aer Lingus do their SEP training in the alsaa in Dublin airport. They have replica aircraft with smoke functions too. Not motion though

smurfjed · 16-03-2015 04:37AM

Thanks for that... I was just surprised as i haven't seen ALSAA grow with the airline. With the increase in fleet and crewing levels, I guess that I was expecting some building expansion.

ProfessorPlum · 16-03-2015 10:17AM

smurfjed wrote: »

Thanks for that... I was just surprised as i haven't seen ALSAA grow with the airline. With the increase in fleet and crewing levels, I guess that I was expecting some building expansion.

Fleet numbers may have increased over the years but fleet types have reduced, hence no need to build an extension. Makes for a much more efficient operation at all levels, SEP training included. There's plenty of capacity at the facility to put all crews through, in fact it runs at nowhere near full capacity.

eatmyshorts · 16-03-2015 11:34AM

Is the pool still full of manky water?!

basill · 16-03-2015 02:11PM

Wouldn't have thought so. As well as ALSAA it's used regularly for SEP checkouts and local schools as well as various swim and diving clubs.

faceman · 19-03-2015 12:23AM

About to head SFO to Dublin once again. How's weather/turbulence looking en route? As always I'm be awake for every moment of the flight.

TheBoss11 · 19-03-2015 01:10PM

What are these black and white discs/reels beside the thrust leavers? They spin sometimes during flight what's the purpose of this?

billie1b · 19-03-2015 01:34PM

TheBoss11 wrote: »

What are these black and white discs/reels beside the thrust leavers? They spin sometimes during flight what's the purpose of this?

Stablizer trim wheel, they can be operated manually or by autopilot, on the 737 series they are exposed and you learn pretty fast not to rest you knee on them, I reckon it'd break your kneecap

ProfessorPlum · 19-03-2015 04:43PM

TheBoss11 wrote: »

What are these black and white discs/reels beside the thrust leavers? They spin sometimes during flight what's the purpose of this?

That's an airbus. It's a trim wheel, but on the airbus it doesn't spin like the 737. It actually has a very small range of movement. It's used to set the 'trim' - the angle of the horizontal stabiliser for flight - depending on the loading of the aircraft. And unless the **** has well and truly hit the fan, you don't touch it again. The trim is automatic except for in very degraded situations.

smurfjed · 19-03-2015 04:55PM

In the 777 they were replaced with two levers, but I can't even see those levers in a B787 cockpit photo, so i think that they were replaced by the two toggle switches beside the parking brake...

The clanking wheel on the 737-200 used to be dangerous

ProfessorPlum · 20-03-2015 01:25PM

Livin' the dream!!

http://www.elijahnicolas.com/blog/2015/3/16/a-comical-but-real-life-living-the-dream-of-being-an-airline-pilot-by-legos

Cessna_Pilot · 20-03-2015 03:58PM

ProfessorPlum wrote: »

Livin' the dream!!

http://www.elijahnicolas.com/blog/2015/3/16/a-comical-but-real-life-living-the-dream-of-being-an-airline-pilot-by-legos

Work work work work!

Locker10a · 21-03-2015 09:31PM

ProfessorPlum wrote: »

Livin' the dream!!

http://www.elijahnicolas.com/blog/2015/3/16/a-comical-but-real-life-living-the-dream-of-being-an-airline-pilot-by-legos

hahahah this is brilliant !!

and it is so true ! This will be shared with more pilots

phater phagan · 22-03-2015 09:35AM

This is a small matter of curiosity for me about flight paths, and I wonder if any of you can enlighten me.
Is there a flight corridor south of the McGillicuddy Reeks? I've noticed jets flying east to southwest there and was wondering which airlines fly that route. Are they originating in Kerry, Cork, Waterford or Dublin and what is their destinations? Thanks in advance.

eatmyshorts · 22-03-2015 09:54AM

phater phagan wrote: »

This is a small matter of curiosity for me about flight paths, and I wonder if any of you can enlighten me.
Is there a flight corridor south of the McGillicuddy Reeks? I've noticed jets flying east to southwest there and was wondering which airlines fly that route. Are they originating in Kerry, Cork, Waterford or Dublin and what is their destinations? Thanks in advance.

The vast majority of traffic routing over that area are flights between mainland Europe/UK and the US.

phater phagan · 22-03-2015 09:57AM

Thanks eatmyshorts. Curiosity satisfied now.

amen · 23-03-2015 05:31PM

In the 777 they were replaced with two levers, but I can't even see those levers in a B787 cockpit photo, so i think that they were replaced by the two toggle switches beside the parking brake...

how doe the swtiches work? can you still manually set the trim ?

smurfjed · 23-03-2015 06:37PM

My guess.... the 777 has two levers for alternate pitch and trim, moving them at the same time moves the stabiliser directly. As the 787 is almost a common type rating, i would assume that the two switches in the 787 do the same thing, forward to trim nose down, backwards for trim up.

eatmyshorts · 23-03-2015 09:02PM

smurfjed wrote: »

My guess.... the 777 has two levers for alternate pitch and trim, moving them at the same time moves the stabiliser directly. As the 787 is almost a common type rating, i would assume that the two switches in the 787 do the same thing, forward to trim nose down, backwards for trim up.

Yes, exactly like that.
The levers are for alternate trim only. Only used if trim switches on the yoke fail. They are spring loaded to the neutral position.
The yoke switches are disabled when the autopilot is engaged, but the alternate levers are always active. Never had to touch them.

TheBoss11 · 23-03-2015 10:47PM

Flying back from Manchester to Dublin today in fairly calm conditions and notice our pilot reversed thrust upon landing, also notice the next aircraft doing the same thing (both FR) But EI went reversing. What's the situation Here? Does reversing thrust save fuel or something? Kinda strange

Locker10a · 24-03-2015 12:02AM

TheBoss11 wrote: »

Flying back from Manchester to Dublin today in fairly calm conditions and notice our pilot reversed thrust upon landing, also notice the next aircraft doing the same thing (both FR) But EI went reversing. What's the situation Here? Does reversing thrust save fuel or something? Kinda strange

No its down to company policy really, but will will obviously be dependent on weather, runway length, conditions etc. As far as i understand it thrust reverse is always deployed but my only be a tiny percentage, thus you wouldn't even notice in most cases. In my experience significant reverse thrust is only used in about 12/15% of landing.
Perhaps Ryanair have a policy to use it more than brakes on deceleration as they need cooling off period after landing, and may impact quick turn arounds, as far as i know 737s dont have brake fans.

N64 · 24-03-2015 04:42AM

Also wears the break pads out less if reverse thrust is used

View Profile · 24-03-2015 01:13PM

Think Aer Lingus have carbon brakes while Ryanair only steel which doesn't aid brake cooling as much.

b757 · 24-03-2015 05:20PM

May be ever so slightly off topic but...

Anyone here remember all the way back to the day they done their first solo?

Had a chance to do mine over the weekend, and it was the best experience so far in flying. Hopefully sometime in the near future I will be qualified enough to answer in this thread. :P

smurfjed · 24-03-2015 05:29PM

Well done, its a day that you will never forget....

Mine was in Weston with the legendary KOC in the days when he operated from the Blue Max squadron room......

Growler!!! · 24-03-2015 06:39PM

Well done.

N498CR Cessna 172 out of KISM. Coming up on 10 years ago in September.

martinsvi · 24-03-2015 11:11PM

b757 wrote: »

Anyone here remember all the way back to the day they done their first solo?

Had a chance to do mine over the weekend, and it was the best experience so far in flying. Hopefully sometime in the near future I will be qualified enough to answer in this thread. :P

yeap, did mine couple of weeks ago, most relaxing and enjoyable flying I ever had

ronan45 · 26-03-2015 10:19AM

ronan45 wrote: »

Allways wondered why they dont put cctv on passenger planes. I am an avid watcher of Aircrash Investigation. They seem to do a lot of guess work as to what the pilots was up to etc before the crash and moments up to it. Surely the cctv recorder disk could easily slot in the Flight Data Recorder?
Nothing fancy,just one in the cockpit
Is it a money issue/ privacy issue? They have them on buses.

So if there was just scilence from the cockpit will we ever know what happened...maybe CCTV would have been handy!

The great big "ask an airline pilot" thread!

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